


Black Sheep

by Dizzojay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e22 All Hell Breaks Loose, Episode: s06e04 Weekend at Bobby's, Gen, Horror, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, London, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-11
Updated: 2012-05-11
Packaged: 2017-11-05 04:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dizzojay/pseuds/Dizzojay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchester boys venture to London, England where they come up against one of the ancient city's most infamous sons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N ... This was written for the Supernatural Around the World challenge on Livejournal. The challenge was to write a story set in a country other than the US, and bring a taste of a place you know well to your readers. My story, therefore, is set in London, the city of my birth.
> 
> Okay, now SPOILERS: Tag to 6.04, 'Weekend at Bobby's', the story begins where that episode ended. There are also teeny-weeny mentions of goings on in 2.22, 'All Hell Breaks Loose', blink and you'll miss them. Otherwise, the story bears no particular resemblance to canon - specifically the fact that (SPOILERISH) this Sam is NOT soulless!
> 
> The 'Bridge House' pub that features in this story is an actual pub situated at the foot of Vauxhall Bridge close to the mysteriously-named Elephant and Castle district of London. It was owned and run by my grandfather's family until the sixties. The building is still there, and having remained as a traditional London 'boozer' for many years, it is now enjoying a new lease of life as a chinese restaurant called 'The Bridge to China. I decided to use the old Bridge House as a nod to my roots and because of it's name's similarity to another establishment familiar and beloved to the Winchester brothers.
> 
> This is primarily a case fic, but I will throw in a bit of angst, a bit of humour, a bit of hurt/comfort; variety is, after all, the spice of life. I've rated this T for a little bit of gruesomeness and gore later on and also for the odd naughty word.
> 
> And I've reverted to Brit-speak to keep this in character except for the boys' dialogue and narrative directly connected with the boys. If there's any words that baffle you (we're a funny lot in London) please just ask, I don't bite!
> 
> And, at last, I think that might be about it ... enjoy!

The haunting cry of an eagle owl split the darkening Caledonian sky as a tiny car passed beneath it.

Leaving the majesty of Castle Eilean Donan behind it, the little hatchback bravely negotiated unlit winding roads and unpredictable wildlife as it patiently made it's long journey south towards Edinburgh Airport.

Inside the little car, the two distinctly un-little occupants sat, uncomfortably wedged into the tiny cabin; Sam with his knees pointing somewhere around the vicinity of his armpits and Dean straddling the steering wheel, trying hard not to kneecap himself on the gearstick.

The atmosphere was stilted. Both men were cramped and uncomfortable, irritable after a sour confrontation with that obnoxious douchebag Crowley, and tired.

They were also steadfastly attempting to ignore the creeping dread of the flight home that was rolling off the older brother in waves.

Sam knew how difficult it had been for Dean to make this trip. He also knew that Dean had made this trip for Bobby and he had done it willingly. Aside from Sam, Bobby was the only person on the planet that could compel the older Winchester to haul his reluctant ass onto a plane, and Sam knew that, although Dean would never begrudge Bobby a favour, however distasteful, he and his palpitations would be counting the seconds until the plane touched down on American soil.

He was jolted out of his musings by the tinny tinkle of his cellphone and fumbled clumsily in his pocket for it, his fingertips grazing Dean's uncomfortably close butt and earning him a withering glare.

Glancing at the call display, Sam smiled and hit the speaker key.

"Hey, Bobby," he smiled; "twice in one night? You're spoiling us!"

"Alrighty boys," the reply; "how ya doin'?"

Dean jumped into the conversation; "yeah, I haven't chickened out of the flight, if that's what you're askin'."

There was a quiet chuckle on the phone.

"Actually," Bobby continued, "I jus' been talkin' to a hunter contact of mine over on your side of the pond, an' he could use some help. Feel like takin' on a job?"

The brothers glanced at each other.

"What ya got Bobby?" They asked in unison.

"Job's in London; I figured you'd bring him some experience he could use."

There was a brief pause in conversation as Dean swerved abruptly to avoid a pheasant.

"What's the job?" Sam asked as the shocked bird tumbled and fluttered wildly in their slipstream, "how long will …"

Seeing a golden opportunity to put off the flight, Dean jumped in; "tell him we're on our way."

"Thanks boys," Bobby responded; "he'll meet you at Waterloo Station; the guy's called Cyril Toebone and I reckon he'll really appreciate the help,"

"We're on it, Bobby." Dean snatched the phone out of Sam's hand and disconnected before his brother had a chance to overrule him. He tossed the phone onto the dash.

Sam stared at him through the darkness; "so we're going to London now?"

"Yup," Dean replied economically.

"Dude, it's over five hundred miles, that's gonna take all night!"

Dean shrugged, "I've driven further than that for a taco before."

"Not in this crummy little bucket," Sam replied sourly, "I'm all folded up like a damn praying mantis here; much longer like this and I'll never walk again."

"We'll stop off when we find someplace that's got more than heather and hairy orange cows to offer," Dean grunted.

Sam sighed; "you've gotta fly home sometime you know dude, you can't keep puttin' it off forever."

Dean rolled his eyes and floored the clutch, cringing as the little hatchback whined painfully, kangarooing nauseously into fifth gear.

"How long since you last drove stick?" Sam asked, trying to hide his grin.

"How long since you last shut your piehole for more than ten minutes?" Dean responded ingraciously.

xxxxx

The legend goes that a few drops of old Father Thames runs through the veins of every Londoner; and never was a that more true than in the case of Cyril Toebone.

Cyril liked to tell folk he came from a long standing south London family; 'Sarf London bloodstock' was how he described himself. "There were probably a few celtic Toebones runnin' around in old Londinium getting right on those bleedin' Romans' tits," he often liked to add with a chuckle.

Still visibly strong and fit even through his middle age, Cyril bore the unmistakeable hallmark of an ex-heavyweight boxer; the thick, corded neck and barrel chest were a dead giveaway, the slightly flattened broken nose and the scar which all but obliterated his left eyebrow confirmed it.

Which was odd really, because the man had never stepped into a ring in his life; any signs of damage or wear and tear on his stocky frame had found their way there via a very different source.

Currently sitting in his black cab parked on the rank beside Waterloo Station, Cyril stared out through the fine drizzle which softened the city skyline around him, tapping his finger to the melodic strains of Cliff Richard and the Shadows.

Six fares this morning, had seen him busy but not exceptionally so. He might have had seven fares if the bleedin' council hadn't seen fit to dig up a lump of the South Circular and got him stuck in traffic for nearly an hour. Damn the pencil pushers and their poxy Highways Department budgets; not like they ever spend it on anything soddin' useful.

He wasn't sure whether to call it a day; he was supposed to be meeting these two blokes that his mate Bobby had talked about; experts in their field apparently.

Well, they hadn't sounded much like experts in anything when they had called him at 5.30 this morning, stood in the pissin' rain on the hard shoulder of the motorway with an empty tank after three complete and disorientated circumnavigations of Birmingham.

Mind you, Cyril reflected he couldn't really hold that against them. He had no idea who had dreamed up that unfathomable knot of motorways that cluttered up the heart of England. All he knew was that the majority of them had been designed and built in the sixties - the bloke could have been smokin' anything.

They'd be with him a couple of hours later than they thought. That deep-voiced one, the older one by the sounds of it, had sounded well pissed-off; and definitely not impressed by the Highways Department recovery service. What was a 'douche-bag' anyway? Cyril made a mental note to get on his computer later and go on that goggle thing to look it up.

Bugger it; old Singer always seemed to know what he was talking about, and had never let Cyril down before. Cyril had a lot of respect for Bobby, the two men had collaborated via phone, post and latterly (reluctantly too in Cyril's case) by the wonders of technology on several jobs, most notably that shifter back in 1994 who had run Cyril ragged all the way from Watford down to the south coast, and then shifted into a rat, hopped onto a liner and ended up in New York a week later, the saucy sod.

Cyril hoped Bobby was right about this pair.

xxxxx

It was well past lunchtime when the poor little overworked hatchback spluttered to a crooked, illegally-parked halt beside the great Victorian edifice of Waterloo station and it's two exhausted, starving, traumatised and practically crippled occupants stumbled out into the grey, damp London landscape.

"I am never - I mean, NEVER - doin' that again," snarled Dean, trying to rub some life back into his numb knees at the same time as trying to stamp some feeling back into his feet; "I thought the freakin' Romans were supposed to build roads in straight lines?"

"Sam bent into a deep stretch, and was somewhat disturbed when the crackling and popping of his back drowned out the distant rumble of diesel engines.

"Don' think the Romans built the freeways, dude," Sam sighed, still trying to work the kinks out of his neck.

Dean shivered and sullenly wrapped his arms around himself as the wind whipping through the tunnel-like cab rank swirled up and under his jacket. He glanced out at threatening gunmetal-grey clouds whirling around his head.

"Jeez Sam, doesn't the sun ever shine in this freakin' country?"

Sam threaded cold fingers through hair whipped into a frenzy by the wind and shrugged miserably.

xxxxx

"You friends of Bobby Singer?"

The brothers spun round to see the stocky figure of Cyril Toebone standing before them, the wispy remnants of his silver hair dancing along with Sam's in the damp breeze.

"Depends, are you?" asked Dean curtly.

Cyril reached up and yanked up his jacket sleeve revealing a familiar tattoo on his forearm.

The brothers both relaxed. "Hey Cyril," they nodded amiably; "yeah, we're friends of Bobby." Sam smiled, "I'm Sam, this is my brother, Dean," he gestured behind him to where Dean stood, stooped against the misty drizzle, using him as a windbreak.

Cyril extended a hand; "pleased to meet ya; c'mon let's get some grub, you must be bleedin' starvin' after that trip."

The Winchesters didn't need asking twice. Abandoning their little hatchback without a backward glance, they followed Cyril to his cab.

"This is my girl," he announced proudly to his two bemused companions, patting the curves of her gleaming bonnet; "me an' Myrtle here, we've been together over thirty years," he announced proudly; "we got some secrets ain't we, darlin'." He leaned towards the Winchesters, "only, don't tell the old trouble an' strife, eh?" He roared with laughter at his own joke and slapped the brothers aching backs, eliciting a pained splutter as Dean almost swallowed his tongue under the sudden assault.

Clambering into the cab, the Winchesters sunk back into her deep padded seats, blissfully unaware of the hunter's arsenal secreted beneath it, as Cyril pulled away. They watched the depressing grey hulk of Waterloo recede into the misty distance.

"So, got yerselves a bit lost did ya?" Cyril grinned into the rear-view mirror to his two passengers.

Sam could see the petulant frustration still simmering behind Deans dangerously narrowed eyes and grabbed his brother's right hand before the middle finger made an appearance. He answered on behalf of both of them.

"Yes sir, we've never been to England before."

"Well you wouldn't be the first," Cyril responded sympathetically, "there's a reason why they call that bit of road 'Spaghetti Junction'," he smiled; "well, that's the polite name anyway!"

The Winchesters watched London's bustling streets sweep by as Myrtle took a left past the venerable Old Vic theatre, it's high-brow posters advertising a play neither brother had ever heard of, and threaded her way effortlessly through the meandering traffic down past the Old Vic's modern relation, the Young Vic, showing some equally obscure production.

They were so lost in their fascination of their unfamiliar surroundings, it was a few moments before they realised that Myrtle had rolled to a halt in a narrow cobbled alley.

Climbing out of the car they looked up at the building before them. It was a tall brick building, it's curved frontage looking out on a windswept corner of two roads; one wide, festooned with lamp-posts and traffic lights and humming with traffic, the other little more than a lane, barely wide enough to accommodate the cab they had just emerged from.

The traditional-looking bottle-green and gold sign above their heads proclaimed that they were standing beside a pub called 'The Bridge House'.

"Here it is lads; my home an' your home for as long as you need."

Cyril led them into a dimly lit bar, populated only by two rough looking men, each sitting alone, hugging a pint jug and perusing a pile of local newspapers.

Glancing firstly at their two co-patrons who steadfastly ignored them and then at each other, the same thought came to both brothers at the same time.

This was a hunters' rest.

Their attention was immediately captured by the tall, blonde woman who stood leaning casually on the bar, grappling with the crossword in a well-thumbed copy of the South London Press.

The wrong side of fifty they guessed, she was slim and wiry, bearing the haggard, care-worn look beholden of a hunter's loved-one. But beneath the deeply lined face, and the streaks of grey at her temples, both Winchesters could see the unmistakeable stamp of the beauty she once had been.

She looked up, and twenty years dropped off her face when she saw Cyril; a further ten years melted away when she turned to look at the two tall and mysterious strangers in front of her.

Her smile was electric.

Cyril stepped behind the bar and grinned proudly, wrapping an arm around the woman's waist, pulling her into a deep and genuinely loving kiss; "lads, this is my beautiful Missus, Josie; the love of my life," he leaned toward the boys; "only don't tell Myrtle!"

Josie rolled her eyes, "oh honestly, him an' that bleedin' car;" she winked at the shyly smiling strangers, and squirmed free of her devoted husband's grip, stepping round the bar to welcome her visitors.

"Well now, what a lucky lady I am to have to have two gorgeous, handsome cowboys stayin' with me for a few days;" she nodded towards Cyril with a wicked grin, "so much nicer than lookin' at his ugly boat race!"

Dean stepped forward and, despite his overwhelming fatigue, switched on his ladykiller grin; "good to meet you ma'am," he announced, extending a hand;" I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam, thank you for having us."

Her face lit up in delight; "oh, Cyril, they're so polite!"

She cupped Dean's face between long slender fingers adorned with chipped burgundy nail polish; "oh darlin' you're very welcome," she chucked him playfully under the chin as if she were addressing a five-year old, and turned to Sam, reaching up to playfully pinch his cheek; "you both are, now you both gotta have a rest, put your feet up;" the bemused hunters felt slim arms slipping around their waists and firmly guiding them to a booth in the corner.

"Here we are," she smiled up at the two tall figures either side of her and neither brother noticed the naughty twinkle in her eye as her hands slipped south, each taking the opportunity to tweak the denim clad butt beneath it.

"WOAH!" The Winchesters jerked, their combined voices rising to an embarrasingly high pitch.

"I'm sorry, but if you're gonna come in here wavin' those delicious little arses at me, you can't blame an old bird for tryin'!"

Dean grinned as he slipped into the booth opposite Sam; "I can see I'm gonna have to keep my eye on you," he growled menacingly at her, a lop-sided smirk playing across his face.

She patted his shoulder and turned to her husband who was watching the exchange with amused resignation; "Cyril; talkin' of arses, shift yours and get these poor boys something to drink;" she turned back to the boys, "look at 'em, bless their 'arts, they're gaspin' for a cuppa."

Dean smiled up at her, having absolutely no idea what a 'cuppa' was and winked; "good idea, it's hard work bein' so irresistable all the time."

Sam grinned at Dean, shaking his head; it was hard to imagine that this was the same person who wanted to murder the world after their nighmare journey this morning. He guessed it must be nice to be able to be transported into joy by nothing more ambitious than a bit of female attention and the promise of something edible.

"thank you ma'am," he turned and assaulted Josie with his softest puppy-dog eyes, deluxe version, complete with dimples; yeah, suck it up Dean, two can play at that game!

"But please don't go to too much trouble for us," he added.

Josie loomed over them, hands on her slim hips; "now then, it's no trouble at all and we'll have no more of that ma'am stuff;" she scolded playfully, ruffling Sam's already unruly hair; "I'm Josie, you got it?"

The brothers nodded up at her, "Josie, got it," they confirmed in stereo.

The words had barely left their lips as Cyril approached and placed two steaming mugs on the table.

"'Ere y'are," he smiled; "good strong cup of tea, jus' what a man needs after a long journey eh?"

Although neither brother was a regular tea drinker, on this occasion that didn't matter. They picked up the steaming mugs and took a cautious sip of the scalding liquid, both melting back into the padded leather seats and letting out a sigh of bliss at the comforting warmth.

xxxxx

"So," Cyril began, "wanna talk business?"

"CYRIL MONTGOMERY TOEBONE!"

Three pairs of eyes swivelled in alarm toward Josie's raised voice.

"Don't you dare," she snapped, her dark brown eyes flashing dangerously in her quaking husband's direction; "these poor boys are cold, they're hungry and they're tired," she pointed to the brothers who both tried to shrink into the shadows of the booth,whilst at the same time both reluctantly agreeing she was absolutely correct on all three counts; "and they are not lifting a finger until they've freshened up, had a rest and got some good hot food down their necks."

Cyril had the good grace to hang his head, and glanced up at his bemused visitors with a grin; "what? I ain't arguing' with it," he chuckled, "I ain't that brave!"

xxxxx

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

Invigorated and refreshed after a very satisfactory, steamy shower in their airy, welcoming room, and sated by a monolithic pile of doorstep sandwiches that could have fed a siege, the brothers sat at a table in the bar, in a nicely tucked-away corner booth, and savoured the drinks Cyril had brought them. "Get yer laughing gear roun' that," he had insisted handing them the pint glasses; "this is a real man's ale this is, not that bleedin' gassy gnats piss you drink over the pond."

It had taken a good few chugs before either Winchester could swallow the smooth, dark liquid without grimacing at the strong, bitter tang, but now, notwithstanding the fact that drinking beer at room temperature was an entirely new experience for them, it was going down a treat, thank you very much.

They relaxed, soothed by the cosy warmth of the bar and each other's company, and watched the comings and goings of the Bridge House's usual patrons.

A lunchtime rush of local people came and went. Executives in suits stood alongside men in overalls and hi-vis vests; groups of chattering secretaries compared stories of their boyfriends and nursed glasses of wine beside retired couples, lunching housewives and a cross section of normal, happy, safe people.

But always were the 'other' patrons.

Those solitary men; rough, broken; old before their days. Sitting at their regular tables, they perused their journals and newspapers with the weight of the 'other' world on their slumped shoulders.

Sam was shocked when found himself feeling sorry for those tired, world-weary men.

Josie's hospitality had briefly allowed him to forget he was one of them.

xxxxx

Their enthusiastic hostess was busy in the kitchen, once again cooking for them.

Both brothers had tried to assure her that they were fine; that they weren't hungry any more; that she shouldn't go to too much trouble on their account; that she should take it easy, after all, she did have other customers to serve … and then she mentioned "London's finest Traditional Pie and Mash".

From that moment Dean was helpless; completely in her power.

"She's makin' pie dude," he muttered gleefully, kicking Sam under the table just in case he hadn't heard the first seventeen times Dean had felt the need to point it out.

"Yeah, I know," replied Sam; his dwindling attention suddenly stolen by the heavily patterned wallpaper beside him. Peering closely at it, he was both amused and impressed to find tiny devil's traps woven into the ornate flocking.

If he had been in any doubt that this was a hunter's retreat, he wasn't any longer.

"DUDE!"

Sam jerked back to face Dean, and couldn't help but smile when he saw Dean's face alight with a joy that Sam saw all too rarely across his brother's features. It fitted him so well.

"Pie, dude, MEAT pie!" Dean was practically salivating at the thought.

"You really do need to get your pie fixation addressed by a professional," Sam suggested with a grin.

They both looked up as Josie walked toward them juggling a handful of cutlery and condiments; "on it's way boys, she smiled, "ruffling both their heads; "I've made special cowboy-sized portions for my special guests."

Two pairs of worshipful eyes smiled up at her.

"Marry me Josie," Dean sighed; "divorce Cyril and marry me instead."

She laughed out loud, cuffing Dean round the back of the head; "don't you go teasin' a lady, you cheeky bugger; I might just take you up on the offer."

Sam watched her as she turned back to the kitchen, shooting the boys a wicked grin as she did so, and comfortable warmth spread through his body. Looking across the table he could see Dean watching their hostess go, his face softened with a deep affection; something which Dean guarded closely and didn't give freely.

They'd never met anyone like Josie before.

Sure, she was playing Dean's game and giving him a run for his money in the flirting stakes, but her urge to smother and care for her charges was overwhelming.

Sam realised that with the exception of the care he had received from his brother through his childhood, this was the closest he had ever got to being mothered. He smiled as he thought how he could get used to this. In fact, he almost laughed when he thought that Josie could be far more dangerous than anything the Winchesters had ever hunted; he'd never heard of a creature that got it's hooks into you and loved you to death.

Now he totally got why Dean missed their own mom so very much.

xxxxx

It was only moments later that they looked up to see Josie walking toward them carrying two steaming plates.

Craning his neck eagerly Dean peered across the room toward her and saw – yes – pies; and not just any old pies - BIG pies.

"Pies Sam," he spluttered in excitement, inhaling deeply of the luscious aroma of the beef pie; "is that a thing of beauty, or what?"

Placing the tray on the table between the brothers, Josie passed the plates, heavily loaded with fluffy mashed potato and a crown of golden pie crust sitting atop a mound of juicy, steaming beef mince, between them. She stood back and watched with amusement as both brothers stared down at the meal, not entirely sure how to respond.

Dean's beaming pie-induced one thousand megawatt smile evaporated and crumpled into a vaguely disgusted frown.

Eventually he spoke up timidly.

"It's green."

He looked up at Josie in horror; "the gravy's green!"

She laughed; "you daft sod; it's not gravy, it's parsley liquor"

Dean shook his head; "parsley … what?"

She laughed; "parsley liquor; parsley, chicken stock, vinegar, butter, pepper … and a few secrets;" she winked, "my own special cowboy recipe – that'll put hairs on your chest that will!"

Dean prodded the green liquid with his fork suspiciously; "how do you know I want any hairs on my chest ... or anywhere else for that matter?" He asked sulkily.

Josie raised an eyebrow that suggested she would have no reservations about finding out.

Not sharing Dean's inherent aversion to putting anything green anywhere near his mouth and, buoyed by Josie's reassurance, Sam decided to take the plunge and tucked in enthusiastically.

He looked up, grinning a hamster-cheeked grin; "oh dude, you should try this," he mumbled wetly, "it's awesome!

Withering under Josie's stern gaze, Dean picked up his fork, and timidly forked a lump of the pie into his mouth.

almost instantly, his furrowed brow smoothed as his face melted into a sighing, eye-rolling mask of pure unbridled pleasure that was verging on pornographic.

They didn't even notice Cyril walking toward them with a large folder under his arm and two fresh ales.

It was time to talk business.

xxxxx

Cyril at least had the decency to wait until the boys had finished shovelling their meals into their faces; the look on Josie's face had suggested his life depended upon it, but he didn't have too long to wait before he had their attention.

"Right," he began; "what do you boys know about Jack the Ripper?"

Dean thought for a moment, draining his second pint energetically; "psycho douchebag, carved up lots of women about a hundred years ago?"

"Yeah, and he was never caught," added Sam confidently.

Cyril nodded slowly. "That's about right boys," he smiled, "but, here's a thing; did you know that, according to the evidence available to us, Jack was only active for three months?"

The brothers looked up in astonishment.

"No," they exclaimed in unison, "three months?"

"Yeah, ain't bad is it?" Cyril asked rhetorically; "in the space of three months you earn yourself a reputation that's still going strong well after a hundred years."

He gestured toward a spotty youth behind the bar and within a moment, three more pints of ale arrived on the table; much to Sam's chagrin. Not a regular beer drinker, he'd run out of steam after a pint and a half.

"Oh yeah," Cyril warmed to his theme; "Our dear old London Town's like any mother. She's bred plenty of good folk, clever folk and decent folk, but she's also produced her fair share of black sheep. An' they never came no blacker than Jack."

"His first victim was poor Mary Nichols on 31st August 1888. She was a penniless prostitute from the East end of London," he began; "he slit the poor woman's throat then basically dissected her."

The brother wrinkled their noses in disgust.

"He cut out her intestines; wrapped them round the body, took out various other organs too."

"Like I said," Dean grunted around his beer glass; "psycho douchebag."

"Three more victims throughout September 1888," Cyril continued; "all prostitutes, each similarly eviscerated, except one; Liz Stride. Her body was found intact except for a slit throat. It's generally accepted that he was disturbed before he could get started on her."

Rooting around in his folder, he handed some black and white post-mortem photographs of the victims to the brothers who looked at them with horrified revulsion.

"The final victim was poor little Mary Kelly," Cyril continued; "a pretty young irish girl. She came to London to find her fortune, and fell into prostitution. All she found was that evil bastard."

Cyril took a long draught, draining half his glass in one hit.

"He killed her in the privacy of the little room she rented; had all the time in the world to work on her."

Pausing as if swallowing back a nausea, he hesitated before continuing.

"What he did to that poor woman," Cyril whispered; "he practically dismantled her. When the police found her remains, what was left was barely recognisable as a human being. Just … blood and bones, and internal organs spread all around the room."

He handed the final devastating photo to the brothers who looked at it stunned into silence.

"It's like pack of wild animals got her," croaked Sam.

"No," Cyril shook his head; "that's the terrifying thing; it wasn't wild or frenzied, it was calculated, done with surgical precision." He stared at the Winchesters, "this wasn't someone who felt the red mist come down and lost control, this was someone who set out with the distinct purpose to plunder and destroy a living human being for no better reason than he wanted to do it."

"What then? Dean prompted, licking the froth from his drained beer of his lip.

"Then?" Cyril replied; "then, nothing."

"He vanished. Never caught, never found, never killed again."

"Oh …" Dean tailed off vacantly.

"And do you know why?"

There was a shaking of heads.

"Because," Cyril stated; "Jack the Ripper was a demon and my great-grandfather was the one who exorcised the bastard and sent him back to Hell."

He sat back and enjoyed the reaction as Sam choked into his beer.

"All the contemporary reports were contradictory; they said he was left handed, he was right handed, he was a chinaman, a jew, a tall Englishman in a top hat, the Queens grandson, the royal physician, a tanner, a butcher, a baker, a bleedin' candlestick maker; the fact is, he was all or any of those things," Cyril snorted; "because he was a demon and he was possessing different people, like the evil bastards do."

A brief silence fell across the table as the brothers tried to take in what they had just heard.

"There's something else …" Sam prompted quietly, not sure he was going to like what he was going to hear.

"He was rotting down in Hell where he belonged for a hundred and twenty years …" Cyril sighed sympathetically, knowing that the brothers wouldn't like what he was about to say; "and then the devil's gate got opened, and he was one of the demons who escaped."

He saw the Winchesters flinch.

"He's back in London, boys - and he's active."

xxxxx

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

The morning light filtered through slightly parted burgundy curtains as Sam made his way along the narrow hallway leading from the brothers' room. He yawned lavishly, scratching his head and resisting the urge to scratch his crotch through his saggy sweatpants given that he was aware there was a lady in the house.

Following the glorious aroma of cooking bacon that wafted through the modest and homely flat above the Bridge House, he opened the door to the kitchen and was met with a smile as warm as the stove Josie was cooking on.

"Mornin' love, sleep well?"

"Uh, yeah … morning, um, I did, thank you…" Sam stammered blearily, stifling another yawn.

Cyril glanced over his newspaper, a knowing smirk playing across his grizzled face.

"How's Dean?"

Sam stretched; "uh, pretty gruesome and pukey, thanks!"

"Sore 'ead eh?" Cyril chuckled.

Sam snorted a laugh, "sore everything after all that ale yesterday!"

His laughter abruptly stopped when Josie stepped over and placed a plate of steaming food in front of him.

"There you go sweets, nice big breakfast; jus' what a growin' boy needs to set him up for the day."

Sam gaped. The plate was piled high with sausages, bacon, toast, beans, eggs, mushrooms, and tomatoes; he actually had to look over it to see Cyril staring at it in astonishment.

"Growing boy? Blimey Jose, if the kid grows any more he'll be a danger to aviation!"

The only time Sam had ever seen so much food in one place before was in a grocery store window.

He looked up at her helplessly.

"Go on," she prompted, nudging him gently; "don't take any notice of old faceache over there – tuck in."

Sam didn't need telling twice.

xxxxx

Sam noticed Josie pour a glass of water and drop two chalky tablets into it.

"I'm guessing our other guest might need a little bit of help getting out of bed," she announced to whoever might be listening.

"Might need more than a little help," Sam mumbled round a mouthful of eggy toast.

She grinned wickedly, and patted Sam's shoulder as she carried the glass of fizzing liquid toward the door.

xxxxx

Cautiously and quietly opening the door to the guest room, Josie did a double take when she glanced at the occupied bed. Lying face down, Dean was moaning miserably, hugging his pillow. The covers had been kicked off the bed at some point during a night of fretful fidgeting, and with his left knee bent under him, she was confronted with the sight of his boxer-clad ass staring her in the face.

She smiled, folding her arms as she fought the urge to slap it.

"G'way," the voice was barely a grunt. "Leemee'lone…"

"Oh now, ain't you a right two an' eight!" Her nose wrinkled when she took in the miasma of alcohol and sweat surrounding the wrecked heap in the bed.

"Gonn'die;" he moaned into the pillow; "Cyril poisoned me wi' all that ale."

Josie walked over and stood beside the bed; "You're not going to die. I don't allow that sort of thing to go on in my pub; you got any idea how much paperwork that would cause?"

"Need t'sleep…"

What you need is a nice hot shower, then a good breakfast; you'll feel much better."

Dean smooshed his face harder into the pillow and shook his head timidly.

"Noooo," he whined.

Josie's stern frown was barely disguising her overwhelming urge to bust out laughing at the pathetic exhibition in front of her.

"Drink this," she instructed quietly.

There was a soft sucking sound as Dean's face peeled free from the drying film of drool which had cemented it to the pillow and turned to look at her, grey faced and squinting as he struggled to focus unco-ordinated eyes.

Josie spluttered as she finally lost her battle not to laugh.

"Head hurts," he croaked pitifully.

"C'mon, shower;" she gestured with her thumb.

There was a shake of head, followed by a slight gag at the nausea produced by the motion. Dean sunk back into the bed, curling into a ball.

"Wanna die."

She shook her head in exasperation.

"Right," she stated; "you've got one minute to get your rancid carcass out of that bed and into that shower otherwise I'll go and get the sponge and do the job right here."

"No, can' do that," Dean mumbled into the crook of his elbow.

"Why not?"

"M'a dude; 'ain't decent."

Josie rolled her eyes; "I've raised two sons, seen it all before," she stated matter-of-factly; "thirty seconds," she added bluntly, glancing at her watch.

Dean knew the battle was lost and with much grunting and groaning he hauled himself upright, his pitiful moan trailing off into a sound he would later vehemently deny was a whimper. He sat perched on the side of the bed with his head in his hands.

"You're a hard woman," he mumbled hoarsely, knuckling watery eyes.

Josie stood pointing towards the bathroom.

"It's that way, stinky."

xxxxx

Sam was just in the process of licking his plate clean and fending off Josie's attempts to refill it when the door opened and a hunched, pallid figure shuffled into the room.

Dean squinted from under damp hair at Sam, and cringed at the lingering aroma of a breakfast that would normally have had him salivating.

Peering over his newspaper, Cyril winced. "Blimey, I done over the spirit of a Civil War infantryman in Maidstone a few weeks ago; that poor bugger got run through with a pikestaff then trampled into the ground by a cavalry charge over four hundred years ago and he still looked in better shape than you."

"No more ale," croaked Dean; "that stuff's evil."

"Nothing wrong with ale," Cyril sniffed indignantly, "S'a man's drink!"

"Perhaps you should just stop at six pints in future, dude;" Sam suggested, barely trying to hide his amusement as Dean struggled manfully to focus on his brother's face.

Dropping heavily into a chair at the table, Dean's head sunk limply into his hands as Josie placed a plate, equally as loaded as the one Sam had just cleaned up, in front of him.

Sam couldn't help but laugh at the pitiful groan that escaped.

xxxxx

Dean gradually came to realise that he was going to be made to pay for his indulgence; he wasn't going to get away with taking it easy.

Rather than being allowed to lie down and rest, hoping his head might just drop off and roll away, he spent the morning sipping strong black coffee and listening to Sam recapping their conversation last night; the bits Dean missed because he was either distracted, confused or unconscious.

His hazy, cotton-stuffed mind tried to take in what Sam was telling him.

Jack the Ripper was loose on the streets of modern London. Yes, he got that bit. Jack the Ripper was a skanky demon sonofabitch, yeah, he'd got that worked out too.

The MO was exactly the same; it could have been a copycat killing except for the unmistakeable signs of demonic activity such as sulphur deposits which Cyril had found at all three of the murder sites so far, and which had gone unregarded by the police.

There was also a small matter that for each of the first two 'Ripper' murders so far, a corresponding male body had been found close by. Largely unharmed except for the blackening of the face where the bastard had smoked out. Cyril was sure a third one would be found anytime soon, and he had a few ideas where to look.

It all became clear to Sam when Cyril explained that's how Jack would have evaded capture last time, by changing his face for each murder, and now he was at it again.

To say the massed ranks of the Metropolitan Police were baffled would be, as Cyril put it, to be stating the bleedin' obvious.

Dean somehow managed to take it all in. There was nothing like bad news to focus a hopelessly alcohol-addled mind, and if it weren't for the little space shuttle that kept blasting off to Venus in his head, the dancing cactus in his throat and the tilt-o-whirl in his belly, he might have had something constructive to add.

As it was he just sat and nodded numbly.

The details were still bouncing off him like raindrops off a ducks back, but the simple fact was that three innocent women and two - probably three - equally innocent guys were dead, horribly dead, because of this skank; this skank who had escaped when the Winchesters had failed to stop the Devil's gate from opening.

This wasn't the first time their failure to prevent that particular disaster had caused a tragic death and it wouldn't be the last, but the knowledge never stopped hurting.

The only positive Dean could find was that it was a powerful incentive to clean up every last one of these black-smoke sonsofbitches and do the job properly this time.

xxxxx

Dean blinked vacantly, taking another long sip of coffee as Sam continued.

"The first victim was found under some Pier," Sam muttered, looking at the notes he had written last night; "Black, um, black – something Pier."

Dean shrugged as he kneaded his throbbing temples; "don't know - don't remember that bit."

"Well you wouldn't," interrupted Cyril as he strolled past; "you were face down on the table blowing bubbles in a puddle of London Bitter when we got to that part."

Wincing, Dean tried to give him the finger, and failed when it became patently clear he still wasn't capable of counting up to one.

Sam rolled his eyes and continued.

"Then about three weeks after that, the second victim was found round the back of someplace called Old Bailey."

Dean nodded, rubbing his aching forehead and daring to believe he was starting to feel a tiny bit more human.

"They found the third victim in a basement in some road called Fleet Street, a week after that," Sam added, still consulting the jumble of notes he had scribbled, "three days ago, that was."

Dean considered what was being said now that he was starting to understand words of more than one syllable.

"Cyril says he hasn't seen the bodies," Sam continued, "but he's read the coroners reports and it didn't make pleasant reading."

Dean wrinkled his nose in disgust; "there doesn't seem to be any order to it," he speculated; "three weeks between the first two, then only a week to the next one."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, "and he's not confining himself to one district of the city like he did last time, he seems to be picking random locations across the centre of London, the only thing they have in common is they're all north of the Thames."

"What does Cyril think?" Dean asked, draining his coffee mug.

"He's got nothing."

Dean nodded, no more than he was expecting.

"Cyril wants to go out later, have a look round one of the murder sites," Sam explained: "he says we've got more experience of dealing with Demons than he has so he wants a fresh pair of eyes, or two pairs in our case, to have a look around."

"Well, if the last murder was only three days ago, it's worth a look," Dean agreed; "and of course, we've still got 'the knife'."

Sam smiled as he remembered they had decided to bring it in case their encounter with Crowley got out of hand.

The brothers both hoped with all their hearts they'd get the chance to use that knife.

xxxxx

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

It was around 9pm when the brothers, accompanied by Cyril, took their first steps outside the Bridge House since their arrival.

The three men had spent a productive day researching every scrap of information they could glean about the dark shadow of hell that Jack had cast across Whitechapel, a poverty-stricken corner of London, all those many years ago; and so, newly recovered from his earlier indulgence, by early evening Dean was clamouring to get out and 'tear the sick asshole a new one'.

So when they stepped out onto the pavement outside the Bridge House, they were well armed with knowledge, with theories and with equipment.

Not, however, with umbrellas.

Dean looked up at the soupy charcoal clouds that tumbled across the sky, scowling as the rain pelted down on them.

"I say it again," he snorted; "when does the sun ever shine in this friggin' country?"

Cyril barged past him, seemingly unconcerned by the rain; "it's night time yer bleedin' gonk; sun wouldn't be shinin' anyway!"

xxxxx

Myrtle, trundled along a latticework of darkened, winding streets, which grew wider and busier as she approached Waterloo again; the soft glow of orange streetlamps, diffused by the falling rain, flickered across the curves of her gleaming black bonnet, and illuminated shimmering rain-soaked pavements.

Dean glanced out of the window, noticing they were already passing Waterloo station again, and tried to hide a smirk as he listened to the agricultural chug of Myrtle's heavy duty diesel engine. If baby was a panther, then Myrtle was some lumpen, half-witted, grass-eater she would hunt.

Feeling Sam nudge his shoulder, he looked across to see that they were about to cross Waterloo Bridge, one of many bridges across the Thames. It was their first sight of the great old River.

Cyril looked back at his fascinated passengers; "we're crossin' the water boys, you had your shots?"

The Winchesters glanced through Myrtle's rain-spattered window and stared mesmerised down the length of the river as it weaved like a silky black ribbon through the city, it seemed alive with the lights of London shimmering and dancing across it's surface.

Their eyes widened when they saw the stately Tower Bridge in the eastern distance; it's twin towers brightly illuminated against the inky night sky, standing proud and tall, a resolute sentinel guarding the pool of London.

Dean's nose squashed against the window as Sam leaned across him to get a better look.

"Dude; personal space!"

xxxxx

Cyril was born in London, just like his father, his grandfather and lord only knows how many generations of Toebones before them. He had lived amongst the thrum of the city his entire life; he had raised his sons in London and he totally expected, hoped even, that he would die in London.

He had crossed one or more of London's bridges practically every single day of his sixty three years, and still the day never dawned that he didn't feel a little flicker of excitement, a tiny lump of pulse-racing joy in his throat every time he and Myrtle took the trip across the water and looked down upon London's beating heart.

Behind him, his passengers heads swivelled to and fro as he pointed out passing landmarks, the Millenium Wheel, County Hall, the gothic majesty of the Palace of Westminster and its famous clock tower, known popularly as Big Ben, which was in fact the name of it's massive bell which for over one hundred and fifty years had sonorously announced the hour across central London.

As Myrtle dodged the traffic, still plentiful, even at the late hour, Cyril called back to his passengers; "that bridge over there," he announced, pointing to an iron bridge a little way along the river; "Blackfriars Bridge, that is."

The name clicked with Sam; "like Blackfriars Pier?"

Cyril nodded; "exactly, the pier's just beside the bridge. That's where the first vic was found," he reminded the brothers.

"We lookin' there?" asked Dean.

Cyril shook his head, "no point; it was four weeks ago, tide would have come in an' out each day since then, washed away anything worth lookin' at."

Finally, Myrtle rolled to a shuddering halt in a small side-street not far from the bridge they had just crossed and Cyril parked her up.

The three men climbed out of the cab into a wall of black drizzle.

Rooting around, Cyril filled his pockets with things he thought he would need; matches, flashlights, crucifix, and a couple of modest weapons.

He turned idly to see Dean standing beside Myrtle casually loading his Glock.

"What you bleedin' doin? He gasped, shoving Dean's hand down behind his back; "yer can't go waving' guns around on the streets of London - guns ain't legal 'ere, you've gotta have licences an' stuff."

Dean stared at the older man aghast as the rain dripped off the end of his nose.

"How the hell d'y hunt then?"

"I'm not sayin' us hunters don't use 'em, we jus' don't bleedin' advertise the fact yer daft sod."

xxxxx

The three men trudged through the misty drizzle, and listened, against the white noise of the city, to Cyril recount his investigations so far. "I took Myrtle up to the old Bailey yesterday."

"That's where the second murder happened," Sam confirmed.

"That's right," Cyril nodded; "the Old Bailey is the central criminal court of England and Wales," he explained; "but it was built over a hundred years ago on the site of the old Newgate Gaol - lot of dark and brutal history there."

"Our asshat should feel right at home then," offered Dean grumpily.

Cyril and Sam grinned; the rain was not improving Dean's mood.

"I wen' round the place like a bleedin' bloodhound," Cyril continued, "not a trace of anything interesting."

"What exactly are we looking for?" Dean asked, pulling his collar up around his neck and cringing as a stray raindrop tickled a chilly path down his spine.

"Cyril shrugged, "buggered if I know," he sighed, "something, ANYTHING that might give us an idea of when and where this bastard is goin'ta strike next."

The brothers nodded in agreement as they obediently followed Cyril along the busy road.

"What about the last murder," prompted Sam, "that was only a couple of days ago."

"Yeah, that's where we're going now," Cyril smiled; "c'mon we're almost there."

xxxxx

Eventually, they stopped.

"This is Fleet Street," Cyril announced, seemingly disregarding the fact that they were all standing in front of a long white sign which said 'FLEET STREET' in big black letters.

"For nearly two hundred years, up until about twenty years ago, this used to be where all Britain's national newspapers were produced and printed," he hesitated; "the newspaper reports about the original Ripper attacks would have been written and printed right here all those years ago."

The Winchesters looked up, scanning their surroundings. Aside from the magnificent church behind them, there didn't seem to be anything special about the long straight road, and it's tall buildings which bore down on them.

"What happened twenty years ago?" asked Sam.

"What happened?" Cyril repeated bitterly, "bleedin' progress happened, that's what."

"Some geezer decided he didn't need men to print newspapers, only computers; so all the newsgroups took his lead and headed over to swanky new premises out east," he snorted contemptibly. "Near two hundred years of history wiped out in the space of a twelvemonth."

Sam suppressed a smile, he'd only known Cyril a day and a half and already had him pegged for a 100% gold-plated technophobe.

"That's a freakin' shame," agreed Dean.

Sam grinned at his brother; technophobe number two. He looked up at the imposing buildings either side of them.

"So what's here now?" he asked.

Cyril shrugged; "bleedin' suits," he answered dismissively; "banks and commerce and finance houses. They all turned up and sucked the life and soul out of the place."

"Bleedin' bankers," he huffed sourly.

xxxxx

They began to walk along the street.

"You should have seen this place thirty years ago," Cyril reflected; "it was alive."

His face broke into a smile as he remembered the halcyon days of Fleet Street; "middle of the night while the rest of London was asleep, well as asleep as it gets, this place was buzzin'," he recounted enthusiastically; "vans an' lorries tearin' around, drunk journos fallin' out of the pubs … even the ground was throbbin' beneath yer feet with all them massive presses running three storeys down in the basements of all these places around you."

The Winchester looked around and tried to imagine the scene.

"I used to make a bleedin' mint running the hacks around at night, especially when a big news story was breakin'.

He sighed wistfully; "good days…" and watched as his companions wandered away for a moment, looking around curiously.

They took in the tall, stately buildings which loomed over them either side of the narrow street; after what seemed like an age, they walked back to the older man.

"Where was the girl's body found?" asked Sam.

He pointed to a striking building opposite them; "the basement of that building," he stated matter-of-factly.

The brothers stared up at the building, it's magnificent glass façade, black as jet, curved over them, tapering like the prow of a ship.

"That was the Daily Express Building," Cyril announced, "it still kept the name after the paper left."

"The police couldn't understand how he got in there, or got out again without trippin' the alarm," Cyril added,"but you know what it's like; there's things we know and they don't."

Sam glanced knowingly at Dean and they both nodded in understanding. Hunting was a common language spoken all over the world.

"See, the thing is, London's one of the most low-lyin' cities on the planet," Cyril began, "so there's a whole network of drains and drainage channels down underneath us that have been laid down over the years ever since the first caveman came to live by the Thames and got his bleedin' feet wet."

"Add to that the fact that in a city this old," he continued, "you've got centuries worth of tunnels, vaults, dungeons, cellars, crypts down under there and that's before you get onto more modern stuff like the sewers and gas pipes and the underground with all it's tracks and stations and then the second world war bunkers."

The Winchesters nodded, fascinated, and with a sinking sense of foreboding that all this talk of deep holes underground meant that they were going to be getting dirty sometime soon.

"The fact is, there's just as much stuff going on under London as there is on top of it," Cyril stated; "an' all them bleedin' dark and grubby places is a great environment for all the dark and grubby things we hunt."

"At least they'd be out of the rain," grunted Dean,shivering glumly.

Cyril smiled, "so over the years, generations of hunters have built their own underground network, linkin' a load of them different places to make life a bit easier for us when we're down there."

"Cool," Dean was genuinely impressed.

"Mostly the law don't know about it," Cyril explained; "and the ones that do, don't ask."

Sam smiled; "very wise!"

xxxxx

The three set off, the Winchesters following Cyril's lead as they ventured further along the street.

"Fleet Street gets it's name from the River Fleet which runs along it."

Sam glanced at Dean who looked utterly perplexed and was clearly just itching to point out the fact that there was no river in sight.

Cyril rolled his eyes; "underground," he added.

"It's a tributary from the Thames," he explained; "little more than a stream. Now it's just part of London's drainage system."

"Some of those hunters tunnels run between the River Fleet and the basements I told you about," he continued; "I think he used one of them to get about, and that's what I wanna go get a look at."

"You wanna go down there?" Dean confirmed pointing at the ground.

"Yeah," Cyril replied.

"You wanna go down in some freakin' drain."

"Yup!"

Dean sighed; "awesome."

Reaching inside his jacket for three small flashlights, Cyril smiled; "look on the bright side son, you'll be seein' parts of the old city the tourists normally don't."

Dean grunted sourly.

"Oh well, we're already soaking," Sam sighed, looking up into the leaden sky at the relentless drizzle; "what the hell!"

xxxxx

It was scarcely half an hour later that the bewildered brothers found themselves following their guide along a surprisingly large brick culvert; it's massive vaulted chambers and dark arched ante-chambers reminiscent of a cathedral except for the six inches of murky, frigid water splashing around their feet, and an active population of rats which would have made a very poor congregation.

Sam's eyes darted around as he took in the awe-inspiring dimensions of the place.

At the same time Dean's eyes were attached firmly to his feet as he warily stumbled around the massing banks of small, writhing bodies that populated the edges of the water.

That, along with the pervading smell of mould, stagnant water, and dilute sewage wasn't exactly benefiting his still delicate stomach.

They hadn't been walking long when Cyril gestured for them to stop; "we're right under the Express Building," he whispered, trying to keep the echo down; "through there is the hunter's tunnel to the basement.

He pointed his flashlight into an impenetrably black archway which swallowed ther beam of light like a gaping black maw

The three men set to studying the entrance to the tunnel, and every inch of the damp, mould-crusted walls around it.

xxxxx

Dean had gone wandering off a little way, idly scanning the tunnel when he saw a shape a few yards ahead of him through the gloom, half submerged in the water.

Squinting through the darkness, he turned the flashlight on it and his heart sank.

"Sam! Cyril!" he half called, half hissed.

He pointed to what he had seen, "looks like your third meatsuit," he mumbled to Cyril.

They stood looking down at the body that lay at their feet on the edge of the water. It was a young man, his face blackened by the demon's exit, his clothes drenched in blood. None of it his own.

"Damn it!" Cyril roared angrily, and rubbed his head; "I had a feeling we might find some poor bastard down here."

"I'll ring the water authorities anonymously," he sighed, "they can come and get him; we can at least make sure he gets back to his family."

They stood in silence, still staring through the blackness at the body.

"I hate this bleedin' job" Cyril growled, and stomped off back the way they had come.

"I don't hate the job," Dean sighed, glancing at Sam who looked genuinely shaken; "I hate the things that make us do it."

xxxxx

Making their way back along the Fleet was tougher than the trip in as they were working against the current; but eventually, they made their way back to the manhole they had entered through.

Climbing out, the Winchesters stood round, huddled against the rain as Cyril replaced the metal cover, and shook their wet boots out onto the equally wet ground.

Cyril had disappeared towards a phone box to make his call; "I'll make this call, then we'll head back, I need a bleedin' drink." Sam guessed that drink wouldn't involve ale if Dean had anything to say about it.

He looked up wearily through the misty drizzle at the tall illuminated façade of St Bride's Church, it's magnificent spire looking over Fleet Street like a protective beacon.

For centuries it had been known as the 'Church of the Press'; London's spiritual home for the printing industry and the written word, but now it was just another church; diminished like the famous street it watched over.

Diminished like the hope of any success amongst the three despairing figures that stood before it.

xxxxx

Cyril, emerged from the call box; "right, lets go, my girl's waiting," and they began the walk back to Myrtle; at least there would be a kind face and a hot meal waiting for them back at the Bridge House.

They paused for a moment as Cyril's phone rang.

He picked it up, smiling a greeting to the voice on the end of the phone, but the smile fell rapidly as he took in the terrible news that it was imparting.

"Shit," he croaked weakly; "there been another one."

xxxxx

tbc


	5. Chapter 5

Dean yawned and leaned back into a long, vertebrae-popping stretch; arms reaching for the ceiling, his fingers threaded together and crackled like splintering wood.

Fatigue was really starting to bite. His eyelids drooped lower with every second bent over the small desk in their room. His back ached like a bitch and his hunched shoulders felt like he was carrying the weight of the world on them.

He rubbed, burning, tired eyes, and his knuckles came away damp with tears of aching sleep-deprivation.

On the cluttered desk in front of him, besides mountains of books, papers, maps and their overworked laptop was a mug, a shallow drain of cold coffee settled in the bottom of it, and a near-empty flask of whisky, recently filled from one of the Bridge House's very own optics by Cyril; 'don't you go tellin' Josie, she'll have my bleedin' guts for garters.'

Dean had to admit, it was a nice, smooth drop, and went down a lot easier than Bobby's gut-rotting firewater.

Behind him, Sam was flaked in an untidy tangle of limbs across the bed.

As exhausted as his brother, he had done the wise thing; 'can't think straight if you're too tired' and reluctantly settled back for a short power nap.

Dean's body begged to follow his brother into oblivion, however brief, but his conscience wouldn't permit it.

After what he saw on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral two nights ago, he wasn't sure he'd ever sleep again.

xxxxx

"Shit - there's been another one."

Cyril stood before them, shaking; his phone clenched between white knuckled fingers, wide-eyed with horror.

"Another Ripper murder?"

Cyril nodded mutely, gasping as if he was struggling to catch his breath; "St Paul's Cathedral, they've found some poor girl gutted on the steps of the Cathedral."

The three men set off to run the short distance through the driving rain towards the great green dome which loomed over the London skyline.

Allowing for Cyril's shortcomings as an athlete, it was a few minutes before they finally reached Paternoster Square. The open space before the cathedral was usually a scene of peaceful reflection, of tourists staring in silent awe up at the mighty building and of calm serenity.

Tonight, it was a scene straight from the depths of hell.

They were confronted with panic and chaos; a riot of flashing blue lights, disturbed uniformed figures shouting into walkie-talkies, arms waving and voices raised. Hastily hung strips of red and white crime scene tape fluttered around the square, an ambulance stood with it's brightly lit interior gaping open pointlessly and in the midst of it all, a sad, blanket covered lump lay motionless in a pool of blood on the steps in front of them.

The brothers had scarcely had a chance to rationalise what was happening when they saw Cyril talking to a young police officer.

"Inspector Beckham, Scotland Yard," he announced confidently, brandishing his ID, these two gentlemen are detectives Jagger and Richards, on secondment from the New York PD;" he turned and gestured behind himself.

The police officer looked up at the two tall, rain-sodden strangers in front of him, they nodded smartly; "anything we can do to help, officer" announced Dean in his best authoritarian voice.

The officer ducked under the tape and led them to the body, and it was only when they were under the lights of the cathedral that they could all see the young man was clearly shaken. His face, red eyed , was wet, not just from the rain.

"It's awful, sir, she's been gutted," he muttered; "been in the force four years an' I've never seen nothing like this."

"Mind if we take a look?" Cyril enquired quietly.

The officer nodded; "do what you need to do; if you don't mind sir, I'd rather not look at it again."

Cyril was many things, but he was, among them all, a father. He gave the young man's shoulder a reassuring squeeze and smiled kindly; "you done a good job, son; go on, off you go – just see we ain't disturbed."

xxxxx

Gutted was such a small word.

A neat little soulless word, it went no way towards describing what had happened to the poor woman laying at the feet of Cyril and the Winchesters.

Sam had staggered away from the sight puking violently, trying his hardest to aim as far away from the cathedral steps as he could physically manage; surely puking over holy ground must count as desecration of some sort.

Dean was by his side in a moment, rubbing soothing circles over his brother's heaving back, grateful for the diversion to take his mind off the rolling nausea in his belly and avoid puking himself.

The poor woman hadn't just been murdered, she had been mutilated, eviscerated. This wasn't a killing, it wasn't even a slaughter; it was the motiveless destruction of a pretty young woman, a total demolition and ruination of a human body.

The bloody crater of her plundered body cavity was an offence to any right thinking person.

Dean stared over Sam's hunched back at Cyril's grizzled face, bloodless with shock.

"No-one touches this bastard," Dean snarled; "he's mine."

xxxxx

And so it was that the brothers found themselves two days later, ensconced in their room, poring obsessively through book after book, map after map. They had scoured the darkest recesses of the internet, wheedled a shedload of research out of Bobby, and relieved the local library of every remotely demon-based volume it possessed.

They had discussed theories, argued points, offered encouragement and shouted abuse.

Cyril, for his part, had shut himself away in his study grafting his phone to his ear as hour after hour, he spoke to every contact in his book in the despairing hope that one of them may be able to supply any nugget, any scrap of intel that he could cling to.

The three men had barely eaten, despite Josie's sterling but ultimately unsuccessful efforts at trying to compel them to do so, they had barely slept; every atom of their being was thrown into the effort to discover when and where this monster was going to strike again.

So far their combined efforts had amounted to naught, and the only thing the Winchesters had to show for their trials was a brown stain on the wall where Dean had thrown a half-empty mug of coffee at it in a fit of frustrated temper.

Taking one last glance back at Sam, sleeping fitfully behind him, he slumped miserably at the desk, kneading his throbbing temples as his eyes flickered between his increasingly illegible notes and an ancient map of demonic summonings that Bobby had faxed over.

xxxxx

He went over the theories and established facts again in his whirling mind.

Firstly, there was the wet weather. He'd heard it rained a lot in England, after all, it wasn't described as a 'green' and pleasant land for nothing, but this much? It hadn't damned-well stopped since the Winchesters had set foot in London. Was the weather part of the atmospheric upheaval that often accompanied demonic activity? If it was then this was one friggin' powerful sonofabitch they were dealing with.

Then there were the timescales.

The first two murders were almost three weeks apart; twenty days to be precise. The third exactly one week afterwards. The fourth murder had been only three days later.

His head drooped as the time periods whirled and danced in his mind. Whatever he did, he could apply no logic to them; multiples, factors, prime numbers, the Fibonacci series … nope.

Just complete randomness.

The victims, unlike Jack's original set of victims were not exclusively prostitutes. Victims one and three this time round were, victim two was a barmaid on her way home and victim four was a nurse on her way to her night shift.

None of them had anything in common, except that they had been in the wrong place at the worst imaginable time, and all had been hideously mutilated in the same way as that pretty young girl that still haunted Dean's thoughts.

Just complete randomness.

Finally there were the locations.

Blackfriars Pier, Old Bailey, Fleet Street, St Paul's Cathedral; A river crossing, a penal relic, the history of London's newspaper industry, and a massive and ancient seat of Christian worship. Aside from the fact that they were all dotted fairly evenly around a cosy area of central London, north of the Thames, there was nothing to link any of them.

Just complete randomness.

Dean took a slug of whisky, and chased the burn down his throat with a deep sigh.

He reluctantly knew the time had come when he had to give in to common sense, to his crushing fatigue, to the despairing hope that everything would fall nicely into place when he approached it in the morning with a fresh pair of eyes.

The time had come to follow Sammy's example. He had to sleep.

xxxxx

Dean felt himself wilt, and his head sunk slowly toward the desk, coming to rest on a crumpled pile of papers, the topmost of which was an ancient list of demon summonings faxed by Bobby. His eyelids flickered as he began to sink into unconsciousness and the last thing he saw blurring into darkness were words beneath one of many ornate sigils printed on the crumpled paper.

'To summon a myriad, which is 20,736 of Hell's minions'

His drooping eyelids snapped open, and he stared at the words.

'To summon a myriad, which is 20,736 of Hell's minions'

Dean felt a chilling rush of adrenaline as he stared at the words.

'… 20,736 …'

Twenty days, one week - seven days, three days.

He started to pant, his hands shaking and his heart pounding as he picked up the piece of paper and stared at the numbers.

Six.

Six days.

xxxxx

"Sammy," Dean gasped, he turned and slapped Sam's ankle; "SAMMY."

Sam grunted, rolling over and groaning as he drifted back to wakefulness.

"Dude?" he mumbled, scraping a hand through wild hair.

One glance at his brother's pallid, drawn face, wide eyes, sunken with fatigue, his shaking hands as he clutched a dog-eared piece of paper to his chest, and suddenly Sam was wide awake.

"What's wrong?"

"Look," Dean gasped voicelessly, he thrust the piece of paper into Sam's hands and pointed at the sigil.

Sam's brow furrowed as he squinted at the faded print on the fax; he shook his head slightly in defeat.

Looking up at Dean he shrugged helplessly.

"LOOK," demanded Dean pointing at the faded print; "twenty, seven, three, six," Sam looked again.

"Twenty days, seven days, three days …" Dean explained dizzily; "you work it out."

Sam's mouth worked silently, as he looked up at Dean; "six days," he whispered.

Dean nodded eagerly.

He'll kill six days after the last murder.

Dean's nod gained pace, "four days time."

Sam stared at the piece of paper for what seemed like an age.

"This sigil," Sam began; "it's used to summon 20,736 demons?"

Dean's eyes widened in fear; "it'd be the end of days."

xxxxx

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n according to my research, this is a 'genuine' demon summoning sigil - Google it - go on, I dare you!


	6. Chapter 6

"We need to get Cyril in here," Dean barked urgently.

Nodding in agreement, Sam disappeared rapidly, looking for the older man.

Dean blinked, staring at the desk, he allowed his tired eyes to drop out of focus. Funny how the threat of a demon-fuelled armageddon didn't seem to make him feel any less exhausted.

Friggin' annoying really.

He scratched his head and yawned again, just as Sam charged back into the room dragging Cyril, heavy eyed and unshaven, behind him.

With his braces askew, crumpled, tea-stained shirt and sparse hair in disarray, Cyril didn't look in any better shape than the Winchesters, a fact which they both found mildly comforting.

xxxxx

Cyril listened intently as Dean showed him the summoning sigil and outlined the brother's theory of it's link to the Ripper's killing spree and more importantly, the timing of the next murder.

His tired eyes lit up; "good job, fellers," he exclaimed wearily,"so now it looks like we know the day it's gonna happen, and given that all the other four murders happened after dark, we can narrow it down to a period of a few hours, but now we've got to work out where."

"And, something else," Sam added, "is the sigil itself."

He stared at the other two men with a shrug of confusion. "The Ripper would still need to draw that sigil to complete the summoning and I haven't seen it anywhere while we've been investigating this job."

The three men fell into a thoughtful silence as they stared at the small diagram on Bobby's fax; a perfect circle atop a horizontal line; relatively simple as demonic sigils went.

"Carved into the bodies?" asked Dean.

Cyril shook his head, "not reported on the mortuary reports and something like that wouldn't have been missed."

"Didn't see it on that poor girl at the cathedral either," Sam added with a shudder as he remembered the horrific sight.

"At any of the locations?" Dean theorised.

Cyril shook his head again; "not at any I've looked around."

The three men sighed in unison.

"Okay, one thing at a time," Cyril dropped down heavily onto the bed and kneaded the crooked dent that served as the bridge of his nose.

He flexed his aching shoulders, "I think the first thing we need to do is try to work out where the next bleedin' murder is going to happen;" he looked up at the two men beside him; "if we can find that, we can take a good look round the place, see if we can get any ideas about that bleedin'sigil."

Dean nodded in agreement and picked up the dog-eared map, casting weary eyes over it yet again.

Sam and Cyril both peered over his shoulder, scanning the map and the four murder sites which Dean had circled in firm black marker. Dean continued to stare at it blankly, just looking, not seeing. He'd spent so long staring at the damn thing he was sure it would be burned into his retinas for the rest of his life.

xxxxx

Cyril absently reached round Dean towards the desk, more specifically for Dean's flask. Taking a sip, he scowled in disapproval when he found it empty.

As he irritably tossed it back on the desk, he glanced idly at the sigil again.

Then back at the map.

He froze.

"Cyril," Sam's voice was loaded with concern; "you okay?"

Cyril glanced between the sigil and the map again, watched in worried curiosity by the brothers.

"Oh, bloody hell," he muttered beneath his breath.

"What?" The Winchesters were now both looming over the seated man, "Cyril, talk to us, what is it?"

Cyril looked up, shattered.

"Gimme a bleedin' pencil, quick," he gestured toward Dean who spun round and rummaged amongst the masses of paper coating the desk until he found a pen, and placed it without hesitation into the outstretched hand.

"Look," Cyril drew a rough line between the marked points on the map, like connecting the dots; Blackfriars Pier to Fleet Street to Old Bailey to St Paul's Cathedral.

The resultant line formed an incomplete perfect circle.

Cyril looked up at the brothers.

"I know where the next murder is going to be," he announced quietly, and completed the circle.

The completed line terminated back on the bank of the Thames, only this time, a very short distance east of Blackfriars Bridge, mirroring the location of the pier on it's western side.

There was an inordinately long silence as the Winchesters took in what they were seeing; it was Sam that eventually spoke.

"It's a circle, but what does that prove?" he asked; "the sigil is a circle on a horizontal line, what you've got there is just a circle."

Staring at the map, Dean felt his heart sink when he realised he knew what Cyril was about to say.

The River.

Cyril pointed to the Thames; "the bleedin' river; look, there's your straight line."

The Winchesters stared at the map and the blue ribbon of the Thames coiling it's serpentine route across the paper. It couldn't be a coincidence that the circle of murders sat atop one of the few stretches of the river that was relatively straight.

Could it?

"Holy shit, the river completes the sigil," whispered Sam.

"That's it," Cyril gasped, thumping the map with his fingertip; "that's where the last murder will be."

"What's there?" asked Dean.

"That side of Blackfriars Bridge is a part of the Thames bank called White Lion Hill," explained Cyril.

"If he wants to create a perfect circle, he's gonna need to keep things symmetrical," Cyril continued; using his thumbnail to measure the distance between Blackfriars Bridge and Blackfriars Pier, he measured the same distance on the other side of the bridge.

"I reckon our man's gonna strike right there," he punched the map with his index finger triumphantly; "right in the middle of White Lion Hill."

Dean stared at the map for an age before he spoke; "we've got to be sure; we've only got one chance to do this right."

"And getting it wrong isn't an option," added Sam solemnly.

Cyril dropped the crumpled map down on the desk, then stood up and stretched; "well we've got four days to make sure we get it right first time," he sighed, "and the first thing we're going to do is get some bleedin' kip."

"But what …"

Cyril glared at Dean, "look at yer, son; you're bleedin' knackered. We're all knackered," he snorted; "bleedin' two-an-eight we're all in, we couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, never mind prevent the end of the bleedin' world."

Dean glanced sideways at Sam, and despite the overwhelming gravity of the situation, he saw that Sam was struggling not to laugh.

"Nope, didn't get a word of that," announced Dean.

Cyril shook his head fondly; "let me put it another way then, If you don't get your bleedin' arse in that bed and get some rest, I'm gonna send Josie in here to tuck you both in."

A look of alarm crossed both brother's faces.

"She'll probably wanna read you a story too," he added.

xxxxx

He awoke feeling sharp and refreshed, and Dean had had to grudgingly admit that Cyril was talking sense, insofar as the Winchesters could actually understand him, when he had insisted that they had all got some sleep.

As well as talking sense, he was blunt, tactless and appeared, in his own crotchety way to have the Winchesters best interests at heart.

Dean wondered briefly if he was related to Bobby.

He certainly shared Bobby's devotion to the job, and no-one would argue that the stakes of this particular job were so unthinkably high that it required dedication of the highest order.

And that is what it got.

The following four days were spent in a frenzy of exploration of the stretch of Thames bank identified by Cyril's discovery. White Lion Hill was a busy exposed road, but beside it, Thames-side, was a separate walkway, at a lower level than the road; with a high concrete wall on it's land side, and waist-high rails on it's bank side, it was narrow, isolated and shadowy under the leaden, sunless sky that still loomed over London. It was also not heavily used after the evening rush had subsided.

This was the place. There was no shred of doubt.

Measuring distances, gauging sightlines, finding shadowy nooks in walls and corners where they could hide themselves so not to be seen by their quarry, the three men planned their ambush to the finest detail. Contingencies, cover stories, escapes and worst-case scenarios were all discussed at length and agreed down to the most finite details.

The only scenario that was totally discounted was failure.

xxxxx

The sun began to set over the Thames, staining the water with shimmering ripples of crimson and gold in the fading light. It would have been magical to watch the Sun's amber glow give way to the twinkling lights of the city as darkness fell across it, but tonight was not a night for appreciation of beauty.

Tonight was a night for destruction; the eradication of ugliness, of evil.

Tonight was a night for the discharge of a terrible duty.

Dean promised himself that if they succeeded tonight, he would be sitting in one of the many bars beside this great river with a cold beer tomorrow - not any of that lukewarm poison that Cyril drinks - and he would take the time to truly appreciate the London sunset.

He reached round and, purely for reassurance, ghosted a palm over 'the' knife which was tucked into the waistband at the back of his jeans; a salutary reminder of the grimness of their task tonight.

xxxxx

Sam leaned back against the wall, trying to remain as invisible as possible, a job which had become much easier as darkness had fallen; he had found a narrow alcove to tuck himself into - no small feat for someone his size. Glancing back, he squinted through the gloom and saw Dean who had found an equally small alcove around twenty yards away and looked just as uncomfortable. Cyril was stationed a little way further along near the point where the road was swallowed by the dark underside of the massive railway bridge beside them.

He flexed aching shoulders, and shivered in the chilly dampness that pervaded the breeze, then paused as he heard the resonant tones of Big Ben chiming in the distance. The chimes told him that he had been in that spot for three toe-numbing hours, and aside from a steady, now pretty much dwindled to nothing, stream of passers by, most of whom had completely ignored the three strange men lurking in the shadows, the most exciting thing to happen all night was when a passing Jack Russell had dropped an alarmingly large packet right beside him.

He shifted from foot to foot, feeling cold, stiff and uncomfortable, and desperately trying to push nagging thoughts that they had got it wrong out of his mind.

Thoughts which evaporated instantly when he heard a terrible scream.

xxxxx

tbc


	7. Chapter 7

Sam's head whipped round just in time to see a woman emerging swiftly from the darkness.

Missing a shoe, she ran in a frantic, limping hop past him. Arms flailing, her indeterminately dark hair flying; she was clearly in a state of high distress: her breathless screams splitting the thick night air as she repeatedly turned to look behind her with wide eyes glazed with terror.

She had run straight past Sam, without even noticing his presence, however, by the time she reached Dean a little further along the deserted walkway, he had stepped out into the middle of the path on hearing the furore and she cannoned straight into his solid form.

"Hey, hey, steady lady, what's wrong?"

She struggled furiously, wailing incoherently, but he held her fast in a firm but gentle grip.

"Let me GO," she writhed and tugged, shrieking as she desperately tried to pull away from this unknown man who was holding her, keeping her from escaping. Seeing her very real distress, Dean reluctantly loosened his grip without actually letting go.

"You're okay, you're safe with us," he murmured, adopting his most soothing tone and looking over the top of her head at Sam who stood staring at the scene in confused dismay.

This was one contingency they hadn't discussed.

"A man, a man, tried to hurt me, h-had a knife; help me …" she sobbed.

"This man, where did he go?" Dean asked urgently.

She looked up into his face and seemingly satisfied he was genuine, she pointed back past Sam; "that w-way," she stammered, "back away from the river, up towards the Mermaid Theatre," she paused as if to compose herself; "he grabbed me and he was trying to drag me down here, but I stamped on his foot, and managed to get away."

Her face, already grey-streaked with mascara, crumpled and the tears began to flow again; "he was going to kill me," she sobbed.

Dean's heart pounded as the urgency of the situation gripped him. This creep was on the move, a freakin' big hole had been blown in all their great plans by this poor woman, and every second he spent standing here playing mom was a second wasted.

He heard Cyril's laboured steps running up behind him and turned, trying to guide the terrified woman towards the older man.

"Hey, stay with my friend here, he's a taxi driver, he can take you home," Dean tried to reassure; "me an' my brother are gonna go after this bastard."

Her grip tightened around Dean's wrist and she grabbed a fistful of his shirtfront, shaking her head frantically. This man she had finally decided to trust was suddenly going to abandon her and leave her with a complete stranger?

Dean realised reluctantly that he was going to spend so long arguing and reasoning with this woman, the moment for action would be gone.

He glanced at Sam and shrugged helplessly. Taking his meaning straight away, Sam nodded, turning to run in the direction she had pointed.

"Cyril, go with him," Dean commanded, unwilling to allow Sam to face the evil creature alone.

He wished with all his might that he had Sam's back, not Cyril, but the frightened woman was clinging to him like a second skin, and he couldn't find it within himself to shirk his duty to protect her.

Slipping the knife from the back of his jeans, he pressed it into Cyril's hand; "you'll need this," he whispered, and watched the older man recede into the darkness after his brother.

He wrapped his arms around the woman's shoulders and made comforting noises which masked a deep sigh. He hoped and prayed that this whole fiasco hadn't given the Ripper the chance to slip away and find another victim. What if Cyril had been wrong? What if this wasn't where he planned to kill? The sheer magnitude of what they were trying to do was crushing. Had they lost their chance? Had they messed up?

Dean's head spun with the sudden weight of fears and concerns that whirled around his mind.

Over-riding them all was his fear for Sam.

xxxxx

"Th-thank you."

He looked down as he heard the shaky voice muffled into his chest.

"S'okay," he replied softly, unwrapping his arms to allow the woman to step back and look up at him.

Dean reflected that under very different circumstances he would welcome a hug, probably quite a bit more, from this woman; long dark hair, high cheekbones (mascara streaks notwithstanding), soft brown eyes. Yes, nice face, shame about the circumstances ...

"You saved my life," she cleared her throat modestly as she spoke, "that man was going to kill me."

Dean shook his head; "you're okay now;" he smiled weakly, "when my friend gets back, he'll take you home in his taxi."

She nodded, wiping the grey smears across her cheeks with the heel of her hand, a shaky smile crossed her pale face.

"I don't think he will, though."

Dean looked down at the face beside him, "huh?"

The weak smile on her face twisted into a smirk; "I don't think he will be taking me home; I think he'll be far too busy," she whispered.

Dean barely had time to ponder on her meaning when a well-aimed knee struck him with vicious force square in the groin.

He folded bonelessly, clutching himself and dropping helplessly to his knees with a hoarse yelp as shock and pain squeezed all the air out of his lungs.

Looking up through a bug-eyed haze of tears, he saw the woman's soft brown eyes suddenly glimmering cold and hard, as black and soulless as the night sky.

A cold hand gripped him by the throat and, with the unnatural strength of a demon, pulled him up to something approaching as much of a standing position as his rubber-kneed legs would allow.

Gasping and retching, he clawed helplessly at his constricted throat, still trembling from the intense pain of his battered crotch.

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" it asked, sneering from behind the poor woman's face at the choking, breathless figure; "do you really think I didn't imagine that some damn hunter wouldn't have worked out the pattern?"

"I've been watching you watching out for me all evening; it's been rather entertaining."

It tightened it's grip, still ensuring it was just not quite tight enough to kill - straight away - and Dean began to gape, goldfish-like for air.

"The thing is, you hunters are so pathetically predictable, I knew the last thing you'd expect was some panic-stricken little bint begging for your help."

The smirk widened; "oh help me, help me, my big handsome hero hunter," it squealed mockingly, turning on the tears; "I knew you three saps couldn't resist."

Dean could feel his legs beginning to buckle; he tried to respond, but a combination of pain and lack of oxygen had robbed him of his voice.

"She was a great little actress, this meat suit, just what I needed," the demon continued; "did a couple of minor stints at the National Theatre, but never did get her big break;" it shrugged in mock regret; "never will now."

It took a step forward, forcing Dean to stagger backwards guided by the hand that still clutched him with tormentor's force around his neck.

Another step forward, another shuffle backwards for Dean and he suddenly felt the rails that marked the Thames edge of the path pressed up against the small of his back.

"So all I had to do was create a diversion, get rid of two of you and, hey presto, I have my final victim; a hunter – what a deliciously ironic way to wrap up the spell."

Dean's furious glare was lost beneath a yawning crimson mask of pained tears.

The demon's hand forced him further and further back, until he felt himself arching backwards over the rails, with the inky black torrent of the Thames tide rushing back out to sea ten feet beneath him.

His arms flailed wildly, as he at once tried to reach out toward his assailant, and fought to maintain his balance to stop himself toppling backwards into the fierce current below him.

The face of the demon was stretched into a venomous sneer; as it pushed further and further until Dean's back was arched painfully over the rail, only the toes of his boots scrabbling to maintain any kind of grip on the path's smooth asphalt.

He felt his vision fading; specks of light flickering and bursting around him like his own personal July 4th celebration, as his body began to shut down.

He briefly considered letting go; allowing himself to fall backwards over the rail into the river. In his weakened, disorientated state and in that fierce current, he would almost certainly drown, but to do so would leave this creature to kill again. If someone was going to die horribly at the demon's hand, better him than some other poor bastard.

xxxxx

He flinched as he felt the pointed tip of a blade slide up under his T shirt and trace a teasing trail down his stretched abdomen, the cold steel of the knife against his skin sending a shiver through him.

"I'm going to split you open like a ripe peach," the demon taunted, pressing down harder and harder on his neck, forcing him further back over the rail, "and I'm going to enjoy the fruit while it's fresh; just like I did with little Mary Kelly."

Without the awareness to feel outraged, Dean didn't feel the pain of the metal rail digging into his spine, nor the pounding throb of his abused groin; he just gaped helplessly, sucking in feeble, inadequate scraps of oxygen, as his unco-ordinated arms scrabbled blindly at the tightening grip around his neck.

He barely felt the blade slice open his T shirt; His sightless eyes didn't see the demon licking it's lips in anticipation of the destruction it was about to wreak on the weakening body beneath it's hand.

His blue lips curled into a silent grimace as he felt the the keen blade carve a shallow gash down the centre of his abdomen and the demon's black eyes glimmered in wicked glee as his body finally went limp.

It raised it's knife to begin it's work, and finish the job it had started practicing for one hundred and twenty years ago, relishing the sight of the dark blood trickling down the contours of the pale torso draped over the rails in front of it.

In it's arrogant triumph, it didn't see the two men approach it from behind, nor did it see the moonlight glinting off the knife they held poised.

But it did feel the razor sharp point of the blade which Sam buried deep between it's shoulder blades.

xxxxx

Dropping it's knife, the demon howled through fiery death throes, convulsing wildly and releasing it's grip on it's victim's neck. Sam and Cyril had no time to enjoy the moment, they both ignored it as they dashed past to grab Dean just as his limp form began to topple backwards over the rail.

xxxxx

tbc


	8. Chapter 8

Dean drifted.

His head was floating, chock full of cotton wool.

He wasn't entirely sure if he was dead or alive, but whatever he was, he couldn't have processed a coherent thought if his life, such as it was, depended upon it; he was aware, however, that the crackling, sparkling firework display that had replaced his normal vision had subsided, thankfully taking with it the rising nausea that it had induced.

His back hurt like a bitch. No, check that; he felt like he'd been snapped in half. His carved belly was sore as hell, and his poor throbbing jewels … well, they felt ten times their normal size (can't be all bad) but his throat was the worst.

He felt like he'd swallowed a whole freaking pineapple.

So if he was dead, and he had no reason to believe he wasn't, and he was still feeling battered and bruised all over then that was just full-on, totally craptastic.

xxxxx

Suddenly, he could feel hands all over him, feeling him up, pulling him about. Then he seemed to be moving; he wasn't sure if that was real or whether it was just his head spinning, but whatever it was, it was so not good for the nausea.

His aching body protested aggressively as he puked, blinking back pained tears, heaving and retching; jeez, it felt like freakin' molten lava forcing its way up his throat.

Then there was a hand on his back, rubbing gentle circles. Oh, now that was much nicer.

All in all, Dean had to admit he felt totally like ass. On the face of it, however, he also had to admit that being disembowelled by some psycho demon with a big knife didn't feel quite as unpleasant as he'd expected it was going to be.

He supposed he ought to be thankful for that.

xxxxx

He began to suspect he wasn't dead when he cracked open his eyes to see that he wasn't in Hell or even Heaven for that matter. Nor was he and his rearranged intestines spread out on a mortuary slab, floating face down in the Thames or lying in a hole in the ground.

He was lying in a familiar bed with Sam's concerned face looking down on him.

"Dude, are you a sight for sore eyes," Sam's voice drifted across him like a healing balm, "you've been out of it for a coupl'a hours."

Dean tried to respond, but all that came out of his mouth was a pathetic gravelly squeak.

There was another voice in the room.

"Don't talk, sweets, you got to rest your throat, it's really bruised and swollen."

He realised there was a hand on his head, long fingernails working rhythmically through his hair, grazing his scalp; the hand was Josie's.

Squirming backwards, he tried to sit up, but two pairs of hands gripped his shoulders preventing him from doing so.

"Just stay where you are for a while, sweets; you don't wanna pop your stitches," Josie's soft voice admonished him gently.

It was then Dean noticed that he was stripped to the waist and that his midriff was tightly strapped, the crisp white bandages holding a thick pad of gauze in place against his stomach.

He looked up at Sam enquiringly; "what in hell happened? How did you know to come back? Did you gank it? Is the girl ok? Where's Cyril?" The thoughts spun wildly through his mind.

What actually came out of his mouth was that pitiful, huffy peep.

What in the hell was that? Did a cockroach just scuttle into the room and fart?

Sam smiled; having Dean silent was an appealing novelty, but he knew every one of Dean's facial expressions well enough to know exactly what his brother had asked.

"The demon cut you dude," he confirmed, pointing to the gauze strapped across Dean's belly; "Josie stitched you up, real fine job she did too; much tidier than I could have done!"

Not to be deterred, Dean tried again. This time, he managed an abrasive whisper which hurt his throat so much, it left him wishing he'd stuck with that squeaky cockroach fart.

"happn'd?"

Josie frowned, her fingertips momentarily ceased their soft massage and flicked the top of his head. "Listen cowboy, what part of 'don't bloody talk' is givin' you trouble?" Her dangerous glare twitched as she tried not to laugh. "I'm goin'ta gag you if you don't stop bloody rabbiting."

Dean looked up at her from under a cocked eyebrow, wearing a 'you should be so lucky' expression.

She shook her head as she lost her fight not to laugh. "Handsome and mute; what more could a woman want?" she muttered.

Reaching over, she patted Sam on the shoulder; "I'm going to bed love, but I'm just in the next room, you come straight in and get me if you need to, okay?"

Sam smiled his thanks; "goodnight Josie."

"Sweet dreams boys."

xxxxx

Sam offered Dean an ice chip from a cup beside his bed; "these are good for soothing your throat," he explained softly.

Taking the ice, Dean slipped it in his mouth and looked back to Sam expectantly.

"It was Cyril you've got to thank dude," Sam began.

"When we went after the demon, we'd spent a while looking for it," Sam rubbed his head as he thought back to the events of only a couple of hours ago; "then Cyril stopped me; he said it was eleven pm; if the demon was gonna kill today, it only had an hour to do it in. That being the case, why was it leading us off on a chase miles away from where it had to be."

"We both realised we'd been had at the same time; dude," Sam gulped as if the memory was hard to recall; "we realised we'd left you alone with it. I've never run so fast, oh God when I think …"

Sam paused, sucking in a deep breath as he felt Dean's hand grip his wrist.

Dean nodded to indicate that everything was okay.

"We thought you were dead at first," Sam continued, his voice breaking as he tried to explain; "we just managed to stop you taking a swan dive over the rail into the river."

Shuddering as he recapped the night's events, Sam's voice dropped to a whisper; "I couldn't see if you were breathing, dude; I was watching you and just couldn't tell, but then suddenly you sucked in a massive gasp, nearly inhaled my damn face, and puked up all over me. We brought you back here in Myrtle".

"Josie helped me patch you up," he smiled shakily; "you can tell she's had to do it a lot in the past, she's a real pro."

"Anyway, I reckon you're gonna be stiff as a board for a few days, your back's bruised to hell and you won't be able to bend in the middle for a while," Sam smiled; "and, trust me man, you don't wanna see your neck!"

Dean's hand instinctively moved up to rub his grotesquely bruised and swollen neck and jawline. His expression suddenly grew solemn, and Sam didn't have to ask what he was thinking.

"We couldn't save the girl," Sam stated economically, his voice loaded with regret, "but we've both said it before, Dean; we can't save everyone."

Sam knew that the knowledge of the Ripper's innocent victims, including the vessels, would hurt Dean every bit as much as his physical injuries, he was just thankful that Dean, ever the pragmatist, would eventually see through the tragedy to the bigger picture.

In this case, a bigger picture of not having twenty-thousand and whatever the crap it was, demons prowling the streets of London carrying out wholesale slaughter.

"If it's any consolation," Sam explained, in an attempt to salve Dean's fragile conscience, "In his journal, Cyril's great grandfather theorised that the vessels were dead from the moment the demon possessed them. It wouldn't risk having them survive and knowing what it was up to." He shrugged, "so I guess they wouldn't have known too much about it."

"Cyril's out clearing up and sorting out the cover story at the moment."

Dean sighed and tried to sit up again, giving up with a pained grimace until Sam slid an arm across his shoulders, and pressed a palm over his bandaged midriff to help him. Once he found himself somewhere approaching upright, Dean gestured toward the door with his head. His eyes asked the question.

"Josie?" Sam confirmed, "she knows everything, she knows exactly what we've just faced."

Dean winced, stretching his neck and palpitating the swollen flesh with his fingertips.

"We did good, you know that don't you?" Sam asked cautiously.

Dean nodded unconvincingly.

"Jack the Ripper's dead; I mean, really dead this time and that's all down to us. You really took one for the team there."

Dean's hand strayed down towards his faintly throbbing vitals, and his brows knotted into a pained frown as he nodded again.

"Wow," Sam grinned, "I'm not used to seeing you with the volume turned off; I could get used to this."

Dean scowled, and mouthed something inaudible, but Sam's lip-reading was adequate enough to see that it involved the words 'shut', 'your' and 'piehole'.

xxxxx

Over the next few days Dean rested and recovered from his ordeal well, thanks in no small part to the devoted attentions of his brother, and even moreso the enthusiastically stifling attentions of Josie; Sam really didn't remember ever needing to get Dean out of his T shirt to change his dressing and check his stitches anywhere near as often as Josie felt the need to.

Not that Dean seemed to mind at all. Josie may have been the wrong side of fifty but she was still very much, as Dean would so delicately put it, a looker, and Sam would later swear that Dean almost purred as Josie's nimble fingers worked a skilful magic on his sore neck and back. Poor Sam's calloused, well-meaning mitts couldn't hope to compare.

When Dean began to sound like he was watching one of his Casa Erotica episodes, Sam felt a sudden urge to leave the room. He was sure Cyril must need some help with something nice and boring like research.

Dean wasn't quite so rapt about the liquid food diet Josie had imposed on him to protect his throat. For three days he had reluctantly and ingraciously submitted to eating nothing but soup, porridge and ice-cream, all the while watching in wide-eyed, slack-jawed envy as Sam ravenously demolished every mountain of food Josie put in front of him; steak, fish and chips, lasagne and a particularly alarming-sounding dish called 'Toad in the Hole' which turned out to have nothing to do with amphibians and everything to do with huge meaty sausages and baked batter pudding.

When Dean's voice finally began to return, it was husky and broken, and his first words were to beg Josie for that froggy sausages thing.

xxxxx

Almost a week on and Dean was well on the way to recovery, especially after Josie had finally removed his stitches enabling him to become much more mobile.

She stood behind the bar and watched the brothers across the room as they sat with Cyril and bickered; Dean making up for lost time now his voice, still raggedly husky, was on the mend, and Sam teasing him by cupping his ear and repeatedly saying "pardon?"

Dean for his part allowed his fingers to do the talking.

She was delighted Dean was recovering; knowing what the three hunters had faced and how close Dean had come to being the Ripper's final victim, but a part of her was sad; those two sweet boys had brought so much energy and fun into her life, an energy and fun she hadn't realised had been missing since her own sons had flown the nest to build their own lives so many years ago, and soon they would be leaving.

Her lips softened into a smile as Dean leaned across and cuffed Sam round the head; of course, it didn't hurt that they were both drop dead gorgeous on the outside as well as on the inside.

She turned to pour three beers, and caught the briefest glimpse of herself in the mirror at the back of the bar.

She smiled.

Being surrounded by morose, world-weary hunters didn't do a lot for a woman's looks and vigour, but looking in the mirror she swore she could see a tiny sparkle of joy in her brown eyes that wasn't there a fortnight ago. Just briefly she saw a flash of the energetic beauty she had been in years past, back when the Union Street fete committee had voted her the Borough of Southwark's pearly queen in 1977 on that stormy May bank holiday and her big ostrich-feathered hat had blown away.

The same day that her errant hat was caught by a stocky young man with a scarred brow, a cheeky manner and an irresistible air of mystery about him.

She looked across at that same stocky young man as he sat with the boys, roaring with laughter as they swapped jokes.

She watched the exchange for a few moments:

"… so, anyway," snorted Cyril; "this bird goes to the solicitor and says she wants a divorce, an' the brief says, "you can't just divorce the old man for no reason, has he ever been unfaithful?" An' this bird goes, "you know, I think we got him there - I know for a fact me youngest nipper ain't his!"

She smiled, Cyril still had the cheeky manner, and the scar. Plus a few more pounds round the waist, significantly less hair and a gammy knee.

And she still loved him as much as if they had married yesterday.

Strolling over, she carried the drinks across to the uproarious laughter that surrounded the table; and leaned over Dean's shoulder as she placed them down.

"Here y'go, cowboy."

Dean grinned; "you tryin' to get me drunk again?"

"Don't tempt me," she winked at Sam who rolled his eyes with a grin.

She poured a glass of wine and as she joined her husband and her guests, she couldn't help a broad smile.

For right here were three reasons why Josie was the luckiest woman in the world.

xxxxx

Two days later ...

The rain pelted down on the top deck of the gaily coloured open-topped tourist bus; and all but two of the tourists on board were hunkered down inside the cabin.

On the rain-swept top deck, the Winchesters sat, heads swivelling from side to side as they passed the gothic edifice of the Palace of Westminster, with Big Ben looming over Parliament Sqaure looking down on the bustling crowds around it.

Sam glanced across at his brother who was staring up at the giant clock tower, his mouth hanging slightly open with fascinated glee. He smiled; they were supposed to be flying home tomorrow. If Dean was dreading the flight, he was doing a good job in hiding it.

"Hey Sammy, it's great to finally see some of the nicer bits of London history," Dean grinned, distracting Sam from his musings.

Pulling his collar up as a raindrop tickled a chilly path down his spine, Sam stared at his brother incredulously; "you want to see the 'nicer' parts of London history? We've just been to the Tower of London where you spent half the morning reading about a block of wood where they used to chop peoples' heads off!"

Dean shrugged, "yeah, well it's educational, isn't it."

The bus turned slowly through Admiralty Arch into the Mall; "hey Sam," Dean leapt to his feet, elbowing Sam so hard he almost fell off the seat, and pointed up the length of the red-paved avenue. "There's Buckingham Palace, that's where the Queen lives."

Sam grinned in excitement as the bus approached the golden memorial to Queen Victoria that marked the entrance to Buckingham Palace.

Dean turned to Sam, his face suddenly serious; "shouldn't we do something?"

"Like what?"

"Don' know," Dean hesitated; "salute or something?"

Sam shrugged, "I don't suppose she can see you from all the way in there," he suggested, "she might not even be in there, the flag isn't flying."

Dean leaned on the front bars of the coach; "more to the point, is Pippa in there?" He whistled appreciatively; "holy hell, is that one sweet ass!"

They stared at the imposing building as the bus turned round the green expanse of St James' Park and continued its sedate journey down Birdcage Walk.

xxxxx

It was early evening when the Winchesters, footsore and dripping wet, crashed back into the Bridge House.

Armed with photographs of a grinning Dean slipping an illicit mint to a great black Irish draft horse bearing a glowering, scarlet-clad guardsman, photographs of Sam admiring Nelson's Column and a car air freshener in the shape of Big Ben (a present for baby), Dean proudly pulled open his jacket to reveal a brand new navy blue T- shirt bearing the legend 'My brother went to London and all I got was this lousy T-shirt'.

Yes, it was going to be good to get the flight over with, to get back to their homeland, to Bobby, and to Baby, but the Winchesters were going to miss London.

But nowhere near as much as London was going to miss the Winchesters.

xxxxx

end


End file.
